Just how fast is free Wi-Fi at McDonald’s?

After announcing that McDonald’s was going to begin offering free Wi-Fi during the first quarter of 2010, I finally had a chance to give it a shot. Wi-Fi at Mickey D’s is provided by AT&T and if you’ve used your iPhone at McDonald’s (it was free to iPhone users previously), it will be the same network. After the click below, let’s take a look at how easy it is to get online and just how fast a Wi-Fi connection you can expect, as you munch on some fries.

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Roku XR -- Streaming Netflix Perfection

I just purchased a new, and every inexpensive, Roku XR to add to our entertainment cabinet. Not familiar with the Roku? Let me hit the highlights for you. The Roku boxes, all three models, provide access to several streaming audio/video services. Most notable for this little black box is Netflix Instant Streaming. Not familiar with Netflix Instant Streaming? Take some time and read this page. I’ll be waiting for you after the “click below” to share my experiences with the Roku. I’ll also discuss why it is a better solution for streaming Netflix movies than a TiVo HD.

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McDonald's Nationwide Free Wi-Fi Starts Today!!!

I’ve previously mentioned that Barnes and Noble was now providing free wifi and I have been anxious to report that more merchants are adding this service to draw in the tech savvy crowd. Beginning today, McDonald’s is also offering free wifi at the majority of it’s U.S. locations. Cheap coffee and free wifi, now there’s a match made in heaven! Here’s the original news story from Yahoo News:

Starting today, fast-food restaurant McDonald's will begin offering free Wi-Fi access at 11,500 of its 14,000 U.S. locations. It's a nice improvement from the $2.95 they were previously charging for two hours, and it could come in pretty handy in a pinch, considering the ubiquity of McDonald's.

I can hear it now, “would you like free wifi with that or maybe a hot apple pie?” Let me know if you give Mickey D’s a try this weekend. I’ll be on the road and may just have to stop in for a quick beverage and to check my e-mail! I might also like a hot apple pie with that.

Happy New Year from Doc’s Tech Notes

As with most folks this day of year, it is time for me to reflect on last year and ask myself, “how can I better myself and help other people in the coming year?” On this 2010 New’s Years Day, I am sharing five of my Doc’s Tech Notes related resolutions that speak to style, site design and community. You can review these five resolutions right after the click below.

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New Magic Mouse...meh...with MagicPrefs...Oh My!!!

Santa was kind enough to leave me a new Apple Magic Mouse under the tree this year. Now, I took the Magic Mouse for a test run at our local Apple Store before Christmas and thought it was very well designed, nice to look at and somewhat useful with it’s very limited set of touch commands. What kept me from purchasing on the spot were three things:

1. No middle button – I’m a SketchUp user and that is a requirement
2. Very few gestures – No pinches and touch gestures: that’s just a crime
3. It was too close to Christmas to make any personal purchases for fear Santa was planning on the same purchase

As I said, Santa is one jolly ol’ tech savvy elf and when I unwrapped the gift, I couldn’t wait to try it out on a regular basis; however, I left an old three button USB mouse connected for those CAD moments, that is until I ran into MagicPrefs. Let’s learn a bit more, after the click, about this wonderful piece of free software that gives the Magic Mouse the features Apple left out.

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Merry Christmas from Doc!

Doc wishes all his readers a Very Merry Christmas and hopes Santa leaves you all kinds of tech goodness under your tree! As a gift from Doc and to enhance your holiday joy, please enjoy these Christmas images from the 2009 Bethalto, IL Spirit Christmas Walk.

Did you receive a gift that will make Doc jealous? Leave a comment and tell me about it. I’ll share my list a bit later.

Another keyboard shortcut stocking stuffer

I've had quite a few comments regarding my previous post that shared how to quickly activate your favorite browser's address bar using ⌘ – L on a Mac or CTRL – L for Linux/Windows users. Today we are going to carry on the keyboard shortcut theme and integrate two more similar keystrokes into our browsing work flow. These keystrokes, presented below, will open a new browser tab and close the currently active browser tab without the need to move your hands off the keyboard.

Open a new browser tab:
Mac | ⌘ – T
Linux/Windows | CTRL – T

Close a browser tab:
Mac: ⌘ – W
Linux/Windows: CTRL – W

I showed these to my MacBook using wife and she loved them! Give them a shot and combine these with the previous keystroke you learned. You'll notice your browser productivity will skyrocket! You know, it's the little things during the holiday season...ain't it? Merry Christmas!

BTW...would like credit to the "Escape key escaping" image, but couldn't find the original source. Anyone have that info?

Quickly jump to your address bar

I have a short, but very useful, tip for Mac, Linux and even Windows users today. It’s a keystroke that will save you a bit of time when browsing using Safari, Chromium, FireFox or most other Mac and/or Linux browsers. When you are ready to enter a new URL in the address bar of your browser and find that that it is not active or already has a URL in place, before you move your hands off the keyboard and grab for the mouse hit:

Mac | ⌘ – L
Linux/Windows | CTRL –L

This keystroke combo will activate the address bar (as shown in the image below) and allow you to immediately begin typing a new URL. For newbies...no need to delete the content that is highlighted. As soon as you type your first character, all the old excess URL baggage will be deleted. If only life’s baggage was as easy to delete!

That’s it. Short and sweet. Consider it a nice little Doc’s Tech Notes stocking stuffer. Give it a shot and let me know if you find this keystroke as useful as I have. If you have other simple keystrokes that enhance your productivity, drop a comment and add to the note.

Transfer photos from Flickr to Picasa on your Mac

When I first started blogging, I purchased an unlimited Flickr account not only for blogging images storage, but also for personal photo storage. Lately I’ve been moving to Google services for all of my blogging needs. That meant moving my images from Flickr (my subscription is set to expire in one month anyway) to Picasa, and I have to say, the move has been an extreme productivity enhancer from a Blogger user’s standpoint (more on this in later posts).

Google made the notion of switching a bit more appealing recently by providing a couple of storage upgrade options that should make any photo-bug or blogger perk up and take notice:

• 20Gb of storage for $5 per year
• 200 Gb of storage (plus free 4Gb Eye-Fi card) for $50 per year

Being the gadget geek I am, I chose the 200 Gb (shared between Gmail and Picasa) of storage with the free Eye-Fi card. I can always downgrade my storage requirements next year if I find I didn’t use the 200 Gb. I probably won’t need that much cloud storage but, hey, I get the Eye-Fi card and that alone is worth $50.

Now the time consuming part; moving my images from Flickr to Picasa. Here’s the easiest way I have found on a Mac to move images from Flickr to Picasa. Take a look after the click.

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Export all Google Docs with a couple of clicks

This post may give you that sense of deja-vu given my recent Google Docs post on a similiar export topic; however, Google has made the liberation of your data from Google Docs even easier. Learn how it is even easier to download and archive your Google Docs data in just a few simple steps. Yep, it's as easy as 1-2-3 and you can learn how right after the click. What are you waiting for? The liberation of your data is at stake!

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Cyber Monday Shopping at Amazon!

As most Doc's Tech Notes readers know, today is when everyone shops on their bosses dime (not recommended...I'm just pointing out the obvious). As a companion to my previous Black Friday post, I now present the link to all of the wonderful Amazon Cyber Monday deals. Today's Gold Box offer is also a deal that should appeal to readers; an Apple iPod touch 8 GB (2nd Generation) for only $158.00.

{Update...Amazon sold out the iPod Touch! You missed it.}

Ok, now back to work with ya and be on the look out for your boss who is making sure you are working, not shopping. Alt-Tab is your buddy today!

Did you snag any Black Friday or Cyber Monday tech deals? Drop me a comment and "do tell!"

Happy Thanksgiving!!! -- Black Friday Tip

I, and my family, are huge fans of Amazon and especially Amazon Prime. You may have guessed as much from the ads I regularly update on my page. So what’s the Tech Tip for Doc’s Tech Notes readers on this most festive of Turkey Days? Simple. Save time and money on your Christmas shopping this year by browsing Amazon’s Black Friday deals. How does Amazon save you time and money (and quite possibly your sanity)? Check my listings of Amazon and Amazon Prime advantages after the click:

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Learn all you need to know about Chrome OS -- with video

Check out Google’s wonderful and descriptive video below:

Review another video and learn more about Doc’s experiences with ChromeOS after the click below.

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Get more out of Google Voice with Voice Mac

I’ve been using Google Voice now for quite some time and have a great software recommendation for the Mac users who are also Google Voice users. If you want to make calls, review your voicemail messages and send SMS messages from your Mac without visiting the Google Voice site, fire up your browser and head on over to the Voice Mac web site and get to downloading.

Let’s get the disclaimer out of the way up front. This post references Voice Mac version Beta 5.1. And the beta tag is warranted as there are several quirks. But if you can overlook the quirks, you'll find a useful tool to manage and utilize your Google Voice account at the beta price of FREE.

Once you have a copy downloaded and installed, hit the link to learn how to setup and use Voice Mac.

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More DropBox Ideas

I’ve been having a blast trying to figure out fun and productive ways to use DropBox beyond simple file syncing. A few of them have saved me a ton of time and I thought I would share them with you. All of these tips involve using the symbolic link tip I shared in a previous post and are designed to work between two or more Macs. With a few simple modifications, these tips can be used on other OSs as well. Here’s my short list:

• Sync my LDRAW library – AFOLs using MLCAD or Bricksmith will really appreciate this tip as it ensures your LDRAW library is the same across computers!
• Sync my Desktop – sym link: /Users/username/Desktop – ensures the same files are on my Desktop from computer to computer
• Wallpaper/Screen Saver image syncing – create a Wallpaper folder in your Dropbox/Photos folder and set up the screen saver to use images from this directory – I further add additional wallpaper folders by theme: Halloween, Christmas, Fall, Family, etc
• Syncing 1Password data – sym link: /Users/username/Library/Application Support/1Password

All of this syncing and I only have the free 2Gb service! So what cool and useful ways have you found to use Dropbox to keep data in sync and make your transition smoother from computer-to-computer? Leave a comment and add to this listing. As I discover more uses, I’ll add them to this post so check back occasionally to view more of my own personal tips or how Doc’s Tech Notes readers are using Dropbox.